Printing

Personally I print practically nothing these days. I have to run my printer regularly so that it doesn't dry up!

How do I get away with it? I have installed a PDF 'pseudo' printer. and have it set as the default printer. These bits of software have improved immensely from a decade ago and provided you stick to regular fonts the PDF files are very small and, of course, are readily readable by other people regardless of which version of whichever word processor they own.

Not only are many of the PDF readers free software (and Open Source) but also a whole slew of PDF Printers. I use PDFCreator but I hear CutePDF is good and there are plenty of others.

 

While we are on the subject, if I ever need to print a webpage I want the content not all the decoration, especially large multi-coloured graphics that use up all your ink. As I use Firefox I have installed the Add-on for it called PrintEdit. It's big! It's powerful! But at the basic level quite simple to use. You highlight the elements of the HTML page you don't want and press the delete key. And it's no longer there. You can just make it invisible or lose the item entirely so that the page closes up. This helps to get the content of long webpages onto the minimum paper. Explore I urge you if you are a Firefox user.

 

I do like to have hard copy of my family history as well as on my MacFamilyTree. I think it's partly old habits refusing to die but also I don't always want to look at a screen. Browsing through printouts of census returns - arranged according to my own idiosyncratic but effective filing system - is more relaxing than doing the same thing on a computer screen. I also still use my well-thumbed original card index family tree - a card for each person, arranged alphabetically by first name and within that by date. The system works for me, largely I think because I developed it for my own use. MacFamilyTree probably isn't so very different from other makes of FHS, but the user has to get used to its quirks. It's powerful and useful, but there's a place for hard copy too. And yes, I still prefer a good old-fashioned book to a Kindle - or in my case Kobo!

 

I print virtually nothing - about all I have in hard copy is purchased certificates or photocopied archival material, and I usually scan that as soon as I get them. I tend to download images from original parish registers etc for direct ancestors but I haven't bothered too much for census pages. I also increasingly use print-to-PDF to save and file interesting looking webpages with secondary info or images.

Everything is filed with comprehensive file names and folder structures, and all my genealogy files are backed up to USB stick and Dropbox regularly (I use a sync/backup program to run once a day, if the computer is switched on at the programmed time, which copies any new or changed files to both backup locations).

I used to print out family group sheets and update by hand when I was primarily doing my research hands-on in local library, but now that I've exhausted most of the physical resources for my New Zealand relatives and I'm now almost exclusively researching online, I don't bother.

Having said that, I do quite often print-to-file the reports from my FHS, usually to send extracts of my tree to cousins (to help identify in the first instance whether either of us has significant additional info without having to search through sources in a GEDCOM), or to help with problem and gap analysis - so I appreciate a flexible set of report choices. I also regularly update a Word version of an ahnentafel-style report with all my ancestors and their children, which is formatted for printing but never really gets printed any more now I have an iPad...